Work Text:
Part 1
Their fingers brush. When they connect, a shock of resentment floods through the both of them and the bones under their boots; it takes root in the hollow pits of their dantians.
Lan Wangji found Wei Ying in Yiling. He also found a patrol of Wen keeping Wei Ying captive, Wen Chao sneering over Wei Ying’s limp form, Wen Zhuliu standing stony in the background.
The resentment grows, then. Surging upwards and outwards, it discovers that they have bones too, and infests them.
Lan Wangji assumed, then, that if Wei Ying could not fight off his captors alone he could certainly do it with Lan Wangji’s help. It did not occur to him that Wei Ying had lost his core.
Neither of them have cores now, but resentment clamours in the empty places. Tendrils of energy surge between their bodies, connecting in more places than just the contact of their finger-tips; the resentment grows, and tangles together, as one mass. It tangles the two of them together.
Lan Wangji held his own against Wen Zhuliu. He was a talented teenager. Then Wen Chao took out his bad leg from behind, still weak and vulnerable to impact, and he stumbled. With his mistake, Wen Zhuliu was on him; Wen Zhuliu crushed Lan Wangji’s core while Wei Ying could do nothing but watch.
Maybe they died as their fall ended, as they plummeted, limbs tangled, to the ground in the Mass Graves; maybe their old lives were already taken, as tribute to this old angry place. Now they are shattered, broken, made into one whole again; torn apart, into two bodies, minds still tangled.
Wei Wuxian, all at once finding himself able to think again, stares about the Mass Graves in dead-eyed shock. Lan Wangji, no longer pristine or in white, stares back; it is he who first plucks at the connection between them, the threads of resentment that tie the hollow aching place where his golden core should be to Wei Ying’s equally empty lower dantian. They are strings, like those of a guqin, and he tugs at one with nothing but his mind, finds them pliant. A little distance away, Wei Ying shivers, then gasps, then tugs back; Lan Wangji feels it, like a hook in his gut.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji murmurs, and then they are crawling to each other, small creatures in the vastness of the graves, and they clutch at each other while resentment howls about them.
They shake in each others’ arms.
The graves kill them, claim them, bear them again. They die; they are born; they marry.
They make it out. They should never have made it out. Somehow, they make it out.
Part 2
Since leaving the graves that gave birth to them, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have been beset by armies of soldiers in red. It is easy to kill them and raise them; this, Lan Wangji thinks, is justice. The Wen destroyed the Cloud Recesses. Lan Wangji will decimate them in return.
He and Wei Ying stand with their backs to each other atop a spire of rock in an otherwise nondescript battlefield, and music echoes back and forth between guqin and flute, a conversation. They are almost done here, he feels. Their own corpse soldiers - under Wei Ying’s command - outnumber the living, and Lan Wangji’s guqin is making quick work of transforming the ones who still breathe into puppets more easily manipulated. The Wen soldiers have yet to pose any real challenge to them.
Then an arc of blue surges through some of their corpses - Lan Wangji sees it, full of trepidation. His sword is probably still in Wen hands, and his new guqin bears only smoke-dark resentment, but he knows the shade of blue intimately. He tugs fierce at the strands of resentment between his empty lower dantian and Wei Ying’s, a warning - we are not alone, he signals, and feels Wei Ying’s alarm jump in tandem with his own, spiralling between them in a vortex of danger. He draws some of it into himself, backwards, like an archer drawing back the string of a bow; he draws back the strings of his guqin, spinning in place to face the new arrivals, with resentment populating the tips of his fingers and ready to be released in an array of discordant notes. No one will touch the two of them - no one will restrain the two of them - no matter who bears a sword with Lan-blue glare, if they try to touch Wei Ying, they will be killed. It would be easy.
He and Wei Ying turn, the eye of a dark, resentful storm of smoke. He notes the red gleam to Wei Ying’s eyes and assumes his own bear the same. No matter. It is one more mark that signals to any who come - we are one in this, and will not be separated.
Wei Ying says, laughter in his voice, “It’s our brothers.”
Lan Wangji feels Wei Ying’s half of the resentment disappear around them, feels it scurry back into Wei Ying’s body where it has made its home, and all at once can see the same. His brother and Jiang Wanyin stand across the open field, on the other side of a battleground of corpses, with swords drawn and Zidian a bright violet flare against the dark earth and clouded sky. Lan Wangji quells the rest of the resentment around them - a courtesy. He is not afraid of being seen - and steps off the spire of rock, alighting on the ground. There is a ring of empty grass around the stone. No Wen had gotten close enough to die there.
He feels Wei Ying at his side without looking. The two of them stand their ground; their brothers advance across the field, weapons bared, as though their refusal to sheathe them is a warning. Lan Wangji stiffens - wants to let the resentment pool about them again, just as ominous a gesture, wants to meet like with like - but Wei Ying places a hand on his forearm, long sleeve rucked up just enough that Lan Wangji can see the ribbon there, and says “Don’t. Give them a chance.”
Lan Wangji concedes the point, but plucks tensely at the strings of resentment that connect his coreless lower dantian to Wei Ying’s. His husband laughs a little as Lan Wangji sets mental fingers on them, in the same manner as he would a guqin, then sobers as their brothers appear within earshot.
Wei Ying smiles as he speaks. “Jiang Cheng,” he says brightly. “Lan-zongzhu. How have you been?”
There is something like terror in Lan Xichen’s eyes, and a furious tense anger written across Jiang Wanyin’s scowl. Lan Wangji folds into a bow as his husband does the same, finding comfort in their perfect synchrony.
“Wangji,” says Lan Xichen quietly, worriedly.
Lan Wangji meets his eyes. “Xiongzhang.”
Silence descends. The carrion birds have not yet arrived upon the battlefield, so for now it is blissfully quiet but for the reverberating memory of flute and qin, still echoing in Lan Wangji’s ears after he has grown so accustomed to their duet. Jiang Wanyin clears his throat.
Finally, Wei Ying offers, “We got married?”
“You what, ” Jiang Wanyin explodes, but even then he seems lost for words; Zidian dies at his fingers and Lan Wangji notes it as the sheathing of a weapon, sweeps his sleeve over his guqin Mochen and lets it disappear into the qiankun pouch there. Lan Xichen’s eyes follow it, still flooded with concern. Lan Wangji grates under their judgment. “Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Wanyin adds, and then, fumbling for words, “I have your sword. Do you want it?”
Wei Ying darts a glance left to Lan Wangji, who feels the brief thrum of panic through their link. Aloud, he laughs. Lan Wangji feels the tension in Wei Ying, but cannot hear it in his tone. “Of course,” Wei Ying says, oddly contemplative, and holds out his hand; Jiang Wanyin tugs Suibian from a qiankun pouch and hands it over.
A dull disappointment floods through Wei Ying and into Lan Wangji as Suibian makes contact with Wei Ying’s hand. Lan Wangji tilts his head, just slightly. Wei Ying gives a small, private smile and passes his sword to Lan Wangji, who feels the bright thrumming energy of it from behind a seal and tucks it into his qiankun pouch.
Lan Xichen says, strangled, “Married?”
“Extenuating circumstances!” Wei Ying defends. Lan Wangji watches the motion of his face, the feigned brightness; Wei Ying has always been very good at letting people see what they want to see from him. Lan Wangji does not have the same skill, but excels in appearing as an impenetrable fortress of ice. “We were locked in yet another cave together, you see, and I had this brilliant idea - I said, Lan Zhan, this keeps happening to us, this cave thing, and last time we were in a cave together you sang to me and I touched your ribbon, do you think the world is trying to tell us something? -”
Lan Wangji does not know why Wei Ying is trying to obscure the truth. They fell into the Mass Graves. They survived. There was no cave. Nevertheless, he stays silent; Wei Ying is a little better at navigating the intricacies of social situations, he always has been, and Lan Wangji is willing to follow his husband’s lead.
Nevertheless, Jiang Wanyin interjects. “Like hell,” he says, and Lan Wangji directs a stony glare his way. “What the fuck was that? You and - and Lan-er-gongzi, what the fuck were you doing?”
Lan Wangji opens his mouth. Wei Wuxian beats him to it. “Musical cultivation,” he says brightly.
“With resentful energy,” Lan Xichen adds pointedly. Lan Wangji does not look at his brother; cannot bear the fear he sees there. “Wei-gongzi, you - you and my brother disappear for four months, and you have been spending them hunting and killing Wen soldiers?”
Lan Wangji interjects, coldly, “They burnt our homes. They tried to kill us. It is not our fault that they did not succeed.”
In Lan Wangji’s periphery, he sees his brother tilt his head, beseeching. “Wangji, ” he pleads. “We have begun to rebuild Gusu. Come home and you can heal.”
There is a sudden surge of panic that flares in the bond between Lan Wangji and his husband; neither of them are sure from whom it originates, or perhaps it comes from both of them. Lan Wangji will not be trapped. “No,” he says tightly. “There is work to do before then.”
He feels rather than hears Wei Ying’s relieved breath. The two of them move closer together, almost subconsciously.
Jiang Wanyin looks between Lan Wangji, his husband and his brother, and sighs. “Come to Qinghe then,” he barks, “and we can coordinate efforts. As long as you use these - tricks - to harm Wen and only Wen -”
“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Ying says, like a warning.
“- A-jie is in Qinghe, too,” Jiang Wanyin fires back, chin up and gaze stubborn.
Hope is born in Wei Ying’s chest and makes its way across the bond. Lan Wangji sighs, but does not bother to protest; Wei Ying will not let anything stop him from seeing his shijie, after all.
Wei Ying says, wide-eyed, “Let’s go to Qinghe, then.” Jiang Wanyin snorts. Lan Xichen is still watching Lan Wangji, and Lan Wangji does not meet his brother’s gaze; he turns away, painfully conscious of his bare forehead. Wei Ying does the talking. Lan Wangji, then, has nothing to say.
Part 3
In Qinghe waits the war effort. They do not leave each others’ sides.
Wei Wuxian has been subtly on edge since - since everything, really, since emerging from that place he can’t bring himself to think about, since learning just how much force he can extrapolate from a single run on Chenqing, since long before then. But having Lan Zhan makes it easier. Jiang Cheng leads him into Qinghe and Lan Zhan sweeps after them (Wei Wuxian still isn’t used to seeing him in black but cannot say he is opposed). There’s a makeshift hospital and it is -
It is full of human resentment, a living breeding ground of it, each cluster of fury only a single death away from being able to be used, some of these soldiers only a single moment away from death. Wei Wuxian sucks in a long hard breath. He can shed what that place has done to him sometimes, a little, for a moment; it makes it easier to ignore the resentment, and Lan Zhan’s hand (all at once resting cool and assured at the small of Wei Wuxian’s back) is steadying, a relief.
Wei Wuxian tilts his head briefly into Lan Zhan’s shoulder, murmurs “You too?”
“I cannot forget it the way you do,” Lan Zhan says tightly, and Wei Wuxian glances alarmed at his husband’s face; it is closed-off, reserved. He does not like the faint red tint to Lan Zhan’s eyes. They have both learned the hard way that they are one wrong moment away from spiralling, into panic, into destruction; thankfully they have also learned that they can draw each other away from the brink. (When both of them feel the resentment’s pull at once, things are harder.)
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whispers, soothing. Lan Zhan does not reply out loud but tugs fiercely at the link between them, and Wei Wuxian reaches along it, does his best to tease the resentment from the cave of his husband’s ribcage without directing it through a whistle. He does not want to frighten anyone.
Behind him, Jiang Cheng says abruptly, “Are you two done.”
They whirl, startled, in unison. For a moment the bond flares - their synchrony fierce - hospitals are only graveyards waiting to happen, and patients on their sickbeds are ghosts waiting to be made, and they are creatures of the dead and the cries of the wounded are thick in the air -
“A-Xian!” comes a voice that strikes to the bone with its familiarity, and all at once Wei Wuxian can remember his own name, and he turns just as his shijie reaches up to cradle his face. Wei Wuxian feels Lan Zhan settle, slightly soothed; their mutual fright has expelled some of the resentment from them, at least, so it is easier to remember they are human.
“Shijie,” Wei Wuxian says, tearful. He nudges his head further into the arc of her palm.
Jiang Yanli scolds, angry through her own tears - all the children of the Jiang are criers - “It has been four months, a-Xian! Where have you been -” She collapses onto him, and her face is gaunt and wan. Wei Wuxian recognises the exhaustion. When they pass still water, he sees it in his own reflection.
“Shijie,” he repeats, and presses the tight hard clump of joy growing in his chest in Lan Zhan’s direction so that his husband can feel it, “Xianxian has something to tell you.”
Jiang Yanli is short and her arms are thin, but her grip around him carries the strength befitting a daughter of Yu Ziyuan. “You are alive, ” she says, sniffling, and then draws back to look him in the eyes. “How?”
“I got married,” Wei Wuxian offers. It is in fact an answer to how? , but he knows it will not be taken as such. “Ah, shijie, I missed you -”
His shijie turns, spots Lan Zhan, and immediately makes a visible effort to collect herself. “Lan-er-gongzi,” she says, a little strangled, patting down the loose grey robes she wears. “Forgive my - ah, it’s been a long few months - I’m pleased to discover that you are also not dead,” and her voice trails away at the end like a question.
“Yes,” Lan Zhan says, and nothing else.
Lan Zhan has absolutely no intention of elaborating, and he makes this Wei Wuxian’s problem by shoving this along the bond. Wei Wuxian sighs. “Lan Wangji,” he begins, magnanimous as a method of obfuscation, “saved my life, shijie. It’s him you should be thanking. You know, he swooped in at the last moment to draw me out of harm’s way, and I was just so overcome that I had to kiss him, and things escalated from there, and now I have a husband!” To prevent Jiang Yanli from inquiring further, because the idea of having what happened in that place seen and known makes him cringe into himself like a frightened animal, he continues insouciantly, “Don’t worry. We waited until marriage.”
Jiang Yanli gives a startled laugh, then makes a face as though she is surprised by herself. “A- Xian, ” she complains, eyes still wet, her smile brilliant.
“Shijie,” he repeats, Lan Zhan’s presence at his side a grounding anchor, and finds himself able to breathe through the resentment that crowds the sky.
They are, for the most part, not challenged on their new cultivation. (Lan Zhan knows, how could he not by now, about what happened to Wei Wuxian’s golden core; thus he knows that no one else can or Jiang Cheng will hear it, and he has agreed to hold his silence unless something changes.) There are a few dubious looks - like the ones from the entire war council, when Wei Wuxian sweeps into the meeting room with his husband at his side and cryptic assurances on his lips - but no one even dares ask why Wei Wuxian is so certain the Yinhufu will not be a problem.
Lan Zhan has taken to practicing songs on his new guqin - Mochen - that do not call up resentment, or do much of anything at all. There is one that Wei Wuxian knows well, and he weaves ornamentation on Chenqing around it like a promise. Their musics know each other well. Wei Wuxian thinks the two of them could end the war, if it were necessary.
So.
He lowers Chenqing from his lips, one such evening when the two of them are alone in their quarters, and wets them. “Lan Zhan,” he says, deceptively idle.
Lan Zhan, the lucky fucker with a stringed instrument, does not falter in his playing. “Wei Ying,” he replies, just for the saying of it; they do not really need words, for this call and response, but it helps to ground them both.
Wei Wuxian says, feeling a smile curve thin across his lips, “Let’s win the war.”
“Whatever Wei Ying wants,” Lan Zhan offers, fingers nimble, just a hint of teasing flowing warm across the glacial cold of their bond. “Okay.”
And so it is. Wei Wuxian raises his flute again, finds his place. They will win the war, then.
It should not pose significant difficulty.
Part 4
They sweep blisteringly into the Nightless City. Lan Wangji lets resentment flood his meridians, lets it remind him that he is a creature of it; he and Wei Ying draw their instruments in tandem and wield them as weapons. They are unstoppable force and immovable object both. Once their allied forces have thinned the enemies it is simple to surge in a discordant tirade through what remains of the corpses and puppets and Wen; there’s no need for harmony when a single furious chord from Mochen obliterates the enemy line, when a trill of notes on Chenqing is all that is needed to wrest control of the corpse soldiers away from Wen Ruohan, when their division makes them twice as efficient. Between the two of them, it takes very little time to win the first battle. Lan Wangji does not know how long. He is not bothering to process any sensory input other than resentment and enemy and Wei Ying, husband, zhiji, everything.
He tugs at the link, wordless. Wei Ying looks sideways at him, unrestrained, fierce, eyes red flares in the sharp gaunt planes of his face, and gives a broken angry laugh. This is the way things should be, Lan Wangji thinks, resentment animating him, and he and his husband share their fury between them.
They leave their allies shell-shocked and victorious in the courtyard; from there they take up a duet, simple and bitter, and continue their progress inside. If before their strength was in their ability to undertake multiple tasks at once, now it is found in their unity. Now they trade efficiency for power. From there, resentment storms through the hall like a battering ram. If there were only one of them they would be only half as strong; Lan Wangji has no need to consider this, fortified as he is by Wei Ying at his side, in his gut, with a ribbon at his wrist. (They had scandalised some Lan disciples in Qinghe. Lan Wangji could not muster a single fuck to give.) Now he and Wei Ying work in synchronisation without so much as a sideways glance to coordinate; their musics twine around each other.
Wen Ruohan dies. He is just another ghost.
There are bodies in the dungeons, warm ones full with breath, and the two of them continue their path downwards. Lan Wangji is oddly serene, as he always is in the eye of these self-made storms, apathetic; what use is there in caring about the people crying his name, when Wei Ying is bright and angry at his side? When he is known, and loved in the least broken way they can muster? What use is there in paying attention to the Wen who are trapped in Wen dungeons, ones with familiar faces, when Wei Ying is lowering Chenqing from his lips, his brow creased with concern, and all Lan Wangji wants to do is smooth it?
Wei Ying, he says, wordless. The connection between them, these thronging strands of resentment, is torn wide open.
Wait one moment, Wei Ying replies, distracted. Lan Wangji blinks, hard, and draws his qin into a qiankun pouch; it is dark in these dungeons, he did not notice that before. The stone floor is pitiless, retaining no heat. The bars around the cells have been shattered. Lan Wangji has little memory of even making his way here beyond a general sense of fury, but Wei Ying is close - flitting around the cells, concerned - so he is safe. Both of them are safe, so long as they are together.
(Briefly, Lan Wangji wonders what will happen after the war.)
Wei Ying says, out loud, “Wen Qing?”
Lan Wangji knows that name, and he fights to reorient himself. It is true, now that he looks: huddled in the corner of the nearest cell are two living bodies, in rags and holding each other, and one of them has turned her face towards the light. It is indeed Wen Qing. He knows that this is significant, that she should not be here; once he remembers how to care, a swell of fury churns in his stomach. “Wen-guniang,” he says, testing out his voice - it is hoarse, and inwardly he winces. The gaunt, raggedy figure of Wen Qing gives a fierce flinch.
“Ah, Wen Qing, you’re all right,” Wei Ying says, and he paces cautiously close, holding out a hand as if to soothe a skittish animal. “It’s Wei Ying, your best friend, remember?” There is a suggestive edge to his tone; Lan Wangji feels nothing but fond amusement. He knows deeply and intimately that Wei Ying is joking. His husband may flirt, but his heart and his cultivation are linked irrevocably and intimately with Lan Wangji, through resentment and the love they fought to build amongst it.
Wen Qing says, quiet but sharp, “Do not patronise me, Wei-gongzi.”
Lan Wangji feels the relief that dawns along the link, a moment before it spreads across Wei Ying’s face like a sun. “Wen Qing!” he says, delighted. “You haven’t been tortured into brain death!”
Lan Wangji cannot see Wen Qing’s begrudging smile from where he stands, a little distance away from Wei Ying and the Wen siblings, but he feels Wei Ying’s joy at it. “Wen Ning is very sick,” Wen Qing says, and Lan Wangji has always admired how businesslike she is. “I have exhausted my own qi reserves and have none left to give him; I would ask you but I know you cannot contribute. Get us out of here first.”
“Be a little more careful about saying that, Wen Qing,” says Wei Ying, sounding slightly antsy. “It is meant to be relatively secret, you know - Lan Zhan, can you carry Wen Ning?”
Lan Wangji inclines his head and sends affirmation along the link; he steps into the cell and bends, scooping up the Wen boy from the ground, with Wen Qing’s eyes sharp and fierce on him like a predatory bird’s. “Be gentle, Lan-er-gongzi,” she says. “You may have taught yourself a new cultivation -”
“Is it that obvious, ” Wei Ying bemoans, but he sounds resigned rather than worried -
“- but I could still end you in one moment,” Wen Qing finishes, insistent.
Lan Wangji only looks at her. He does not think she will actually move against him; nor does he think that death would be an issue, given Wei Ying would be at his side and he is certain they could weather it together, but he will let her maintain that front for her own sake. “I will not hurt your brother,” he says, perfunctory, and turns.
Quietly, from behind him, he hears Wen Qing mutter to Wei Ying, “He knows?”
“He knows everything,” Wei Ying replies, sounding very pleased. “We got married, you know.”
Wen Qing only snorts. “Of course you did,” she snaps.
Lan Wangji feels Wei Ying’s fierce regard for this woman through their link - his admiration of her skill, of her wit and strength. He likes that she has been clear about her intentions and priorities thus far; they did not interact much previously, and now she has made no secret of the fact that her brother is her only true allegiance. “Be advised that I can hear you, Wen-guniang,” he tells her over his shoulder.
Wei Ying laughs, bright and alive. Lan Wangji loves him, with an honesty that flares deep in his chest. “Let’s keep up with my husband, Wen Qing,” he says, sounding very pleased. And then, more serious, “We may have to fight our way out.”
Part 5
“You want to give asylum to WHO,” says Nie Mingjue, incredulous.
Wei Wuxian shakes himself into a gentler skin, trying to remember how to perform diplomacy. He used to be quite good at it. “The Dafan Wen, for the most part, played no part in Wen Ruohan’s actions,” he points out, voice carefully light; behind him, Lan Zhan shifts position, placing himself between Wen Ning - who has awoken, but does not stand, instead crumpled exhausted on the stone of the courtyard beneath them - and the sect leaders arrayed in a half-circle around them, accusatory.
Jiang Cheng sounds almost apologetic when he speaks. “Wen Qing supported him,” he says, his hand resting at Sandu’s sheath. It’s so stupid. Wei Wuxian wants to pick him up and rattle him, fierce, like one would a child’s toy.
He says, through teeth gritted in a smile, “Wen Ning and Wen Qing were coerced and blackmailed. They were told their family would be harmed if they disobeyed.”
And thus there is an attempt at diplomacy, standing there in the courtyard - one which goes, if Wei Wuxian says so himself, far better than expected. (Lan Zhan is bewildered, he can feel it through their link, but also perfectly willing to stand there looking generally protective and threatening, extra guqin strings in one hand and the other resting gently on Bichen’s hilt.) He appeals to Nie Mingjue with lines about justice, and to Lan Xichen with kindness, and to Jiang Cheng with pointed eyes that say I am doing something very important here; do not fuck it up for me, dearest shidi, or I will put fire ants in your bed. Meng Yao is difficult for Wei Wuxian to place, but he thinks he will go along with either Nie Mingjue or Lan Xichen - in all honesty Wei Wuxian really can’t work out who’s fucking whom when it comes to those three, but he’s fairly certain at least one of the possible configurations is more plausible than he’d like to consider. Through this, Wen Qing stands silent but dignified, her lips set and her eyes boring fierce into nothing. Wen Ning stumbles eventually to his feet, swaying.
Wei Wuxian is just thinking he’s persuaded them when Meng Yao speaks. “Wei-gongzi,” he says, tone too polite, eyes too sharp, “your cultivation style, and that of Lan-er-gongzi’s, were … unconventional.”
Wei Wuxian’s brief panic swells along the link before he can think to keep it to himself; Lan Zhan is at his side in an instant, eyes boring into Meng Yao’s. “Yes,” Wei Wuxian says, scrambling for words. “They’re the reason we won.”
Meng Yao’s eyes are fixed on Wei Wuxian’s, but he only makes a noncommittal sound, moving further behind Lan Xichen as though a statement. Wei Wuxian barely stifles a laugh as the similarity occurs to him. It seems to have occurred to Lan Xichen, too, judging by the downturned cast to his stare and the smile tugging at the corner of his lips; nevertheless it is Nie Mingjue who speaks next. “Your victory,” he says, gruff, “will be commended; your methodology forgiven this once.”
Wei Wuxian does not fucking like that, but it will do for now. “Thanks to Nie-zongzhu,” he says, and grasps at the link with Lan Zhan for a sense of stability; they bow in sync. When he rises, he adds, hesitant, “And the Dafan Wen …?”
“We can take them,” Nie Mingjue says. Wei Wuxian does not see it himself, but Lan Zhan does, and so he knows that Wen Qing’s lips have parted in the slightest indication of surprise, her perfect composure slightly marred. “Being the sect in the most stable position, at present, apart from …”
“The Jin are not here,” Meng Yao says, through a very forced smile.
“That is settled,” Lan Xichen cuts in, gentle, his own smile fond.
Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian make eye contact. Wei Wuxian has been presumed dead for four months and evading any honest communication for another two; Jiang Cheng has become the leader of his sect at barely seventeen after Wei Wuxian’s actions indirectly led to his parents’ death; despite this, they can agree on one thing. Namely: what the fuck. But answers about whatever the hell is going on between the other three present will most likely not be forthcoming, and so Jiang Cheng clears his throat, and Wei Wuxian looks away, and the conversation concludes after the necessary niceties have been exchanged.
The Wen go with Nie Mingjue, to discuss arrangements. Jiang Cheng watches Wei Wuxian for a long, agonized moment, before turning his back to storm away. Wei Wuxian pointedly does not think about where Lan Xichen and Meng Yao are going; all he knows is that they disappear together after giving their own bows, leaving him alone with his husband.
Lan Zhan says, softly, “Let’s leave.”
“And go where?”
“Just leave.”
Wei Wuxian feels his husband’s presence - steady, angry, beautiful - in the pit of his chest and in the lump in his throat. He says, “We can’t tell them this is all we have.”
“Then we will not.”
“If they know -”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan implores.
Wei Wuxian looks at him, for a long moment, and takes a shuddering breath. “Okay.”
The two of them leave the Nightless City, just for now. There are things to be done. People to speak to. The Jin will arrive soon, and Jiang Cheng still claims Wei Wuxian’s allegiance, and Lan Zhan will need to speak to his family. They will have to lie. They will have to explain that they are married.
Neither of them can draw their swords any more, let alone fly on them. They travel on foot. At the foot of the mountain that is the Nightless City, there are the ruins of a village; the two of them linger there, comfortable with the silence and with each other. There’s no need for extraneous words between them. Wei Wuxian settles down with his back to an old well, and Lan Zhan kneels at his side. He raises Chenqing to his lips, and plays a song that has no greater purpose than just to exist. It’s music, nothing more.
Night falls. The war is over. Lan Zhan accompanies Wei Wuxian on his new guqin for some time, then - as old habits take grasp of him - curls into Wei Wuxian’s side, subconsciously, as he drifts into a half sleep.
Wei Wuxian continues to play. He feels the absence of his own golden core like a brand or an ache, can feel Lan Zhan’s presence in the place it should be, irrevocable. The graves still have a hold on him. Things have not been solved - where will he and Lan Zhan go, if neither of their sects will accept the other? Will they walk up and down the country? Will they be missed?
But for now, Lan Wangji, settled half-asleep into Wei Wuxian’s side, arm slung around the small of his back, hand splayed possessively at the smallest part of his waist, the touch of his skin burning like comfort - Lan Wangji is, will be, here. He makes a sound, small and gentle, one that does not befit someone who cultivates with resentment, a man given over to death. It is not a sound one would expect from Hanguang-jun, the darker jade, the man who fell from the light he used to carry. Wei Wuxian has heard the stories. They are even less kind to him.
“Who cares,” he says out loud, and then giggles as the breath from his words makes a half-shrill on Chenqing. “So what! Am I right, Lan Zhan?”
Lan Wangji looks up to blink at him, slow and cat-like. There is a crick in Wei Wuxian’s neck. The stone of the well is hard and cold against his back, and people are probably looking for them, and Wei Wuxian laughs again as Lan Zhan - instead of answering - gives a pointed tug on their link that translates to something like Sleep or maybe Shut up or Too much talking.
“Too much thinking,” Wei Wuxian muses out loud.
Lan Zhan snaps “Exactly”, slightly petulant, and closes his eyes again.
The fearsome Hanguang-jun fallen from light, Wei Wuxian thinks, and stifles a snort.
Certainly, resentment sits where his golden core should, and he has used it to desecrate and lay waste and kill thousands. The flute he now spins in his fingers is not a normal instrument. He bears the scars of mass graves and the hungry dead, has come through them to this, a life not stolen but marked by death.
But he is not alone in this.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji murmurs. The two of them are small creatures beneath the vast mountain above, in this empty ruined village, and Wei Wuxian twists his fingers into his husband’s robes; they clutch at each other, beneath the shadows above.
They shake in each others’ arms.